An Associated Press investigation has found that detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody are dying by suicide at an accelerating rate, with deaths occurring across a sprawling network of county jails where people in acute mental distress were frequently isolated, denied medical care, and cut off from family contact. The AP’s findings, drawn from jail records, autopsy reports, and handwritten notes left by detainees, document a pattern of systemic failure inside a detention system that has expanded rapidly since the Trump administration intensified interior enforcement.
The investigation centers in part on Brayan Rayo Garzon, who was held at the Phelps County jail in Rolla, Missouri, in April 2025. Rayo was on his fourth day of isolation as he battled the fevers and chills of COVID-19, according to jail records reviewed by the AP. His request for mental health treatment had been put off, and staff had forbidden him from making his nightly phone call to his mother — a restriction described as a precaution to prevent the spread of illness.
Rayo pleaded with jailers in handwritten notes to arrange a conversation with her. “I feel in my heart that she’s very worried about me,” he wrote in Spanish. A guard collected the note and walked away. Within an hour, jail records show, Rayo was found unconscious in his cell. An autopsy determined he killed himself.
The AP reported that Rayo’s case was not isolated. Across multiple states, the investigation documented detainees who exhibited signs of acute mental distress — including expressed suicidal intent — and were placed in isolation, denied access to mental health services, or separated from family communication. The detention system’s reliance on hundreds of county jails, where mental-health staffing and suicide-prevention protocols vary widely, has drawn scrutiny from advocates and medical professionals who argue that the facilities are not equipped to manage the needs of a population under the prolonged stress of detention and uncertain legal status.
The AP’s findings add to a body of reporting on conditions inside ICE custody. MSI has previously reported on deaths and alleged neglect across the detention network, including cases in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and at the El Paso tent complex. The AP investigation is the most comprehensive accounting to date of suicide deaths specifically, and it arrives as the administration’s enforcement policies continue to push detainees into facilities that were not designed to serve as long-term mental-health wards.
ICE did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment on the investigation’s findings, the wire service reported.